Don't Blink
by mjbaerman
Summary: Don't blink, or you'll miss these little snippets in time. Random one-shots borne of equally random thoughts. Many will likely focus on Stoick and Hiccup. (3) The chieftain would never admit that if he lost one, he couldn't bear to lose the other, too.
1. Drink

Gobber's ax was already buried in the embers of the hearth.

"We have to," Spitelout grumbled. Stoick sighed heavily, rubbing his eyes and face. He wasn't surprised, but it weighed like an anvil on his chest anyway. He could smell the heat of the metal as it began to glow.

The fever had become too much for Hiccup's little body to take. His foot had been lost in the final blast, but his leg had become infected since then. Even in the safety of the chief's home, which had been prayed upon and blessed for protection, his son suffered that which they could not see. Spitelout clapped a burly hand on the man's shoulder, comforting and bracing.

"If we act quickly we'll save most of his leg and tame his illness a bit."

"Is there no other way?" Stoick questioned his brother. One more try, for the sake of trying. Gobber finally shifted from his seat by the hearth, somber in his wisdom of the subject.

"Listen, Stoick, that leg of his is a stump now, no matter what we do. Taking off the infection while he's too far gone to remember is the only small mercy we can give him. At his age, you don't want him dwelling on what we're about to do."

Stoick was silent for a long moment. He turned on his seat, facing Hiccup's impromptu bedside. He'd hardly left his son in days, despite all the changes happening in the village. Good changes Hiccup should have been awake to see. The chief of Berk reached out, stroking Hiccup's hair back from his sweaty forehead with a massive, trembling hand, careful of the small burns on his face. He watched his son breathe in labored bursts and quiet moans.

"Very well..." He finally agreed. There was that anvil again; sitting square in his chest. And then he heard the thunk and scrape of the real anvil – the one Gobber had purified in the forge kiln and brought to the house specifically for this purpose. It might as well have been a butcher block...

"Here," Spitelout's voice broke through his thoughts. He handed Stoick a steep bowl of liquid. It smelled foul – a concoction he had been working on all morning at the fire: heated mead, sheep's gall, some vinegar, a few spices, and honey to make the taste tolerable enough to keep down. "He shouldn't remember anything, but this will help dull his senses."

Stoick knew how to read between the proverbial lines. Spitelout didn't have to say the "just in case he does remember parts of it, let's get him drunk off his gourd and numb as ice to make it even less likely" part. So he busied himself with taking his son into his arms and going about the chore of getting him to drink. It wasn't as if he hadn't nursed his restless child in the past, but to be tasked with this now, after all the years of awkwardness between them... Hiccup was fourteen, and Stoick hardly knew him.

The chief focused – really _focused_ – on his boy who couldn't wield a weapon or sprint down a hill without tripping, the boy who read books and drew pictures and wielded his charcoal left-handed (Loki's trickery was strong in him...), the boy who invented contraptions that often did more harm to his fellow villagers than to the intended target, who's shadow was disaster itself, the boy who was exiled and disowned... This was the boy that had saved Berk and brought lasting peace. The boy who could balance an ax with his eyes closed, sharpen a sword faster than Gobber, and flew through the sky on the most feared dragon ever known before the Red Death like it was child's play...

Stoick's son was a man. A true Viking.

And now, Stoick tipped his head back like an infant and tilted the bowl to his chapped lips. Hiccup instinctively turned his head away, his fever-fogged mind stuck in the panic of battle. Stoick steadied him with a cradling hand to his head.

"Easy, son. Come on, drink up..."

Several sputtering moments later found most of the bowl empty, and the boy exhausted. He had, at least, begun to relax sluggishly into Stoick's hold, and father took a moment to just take in his son for the first time in far too long. From his boney shoulders and narrow chest, to his long fingers and slightly-too-large forehead. A freckled face with a scar on his chin, and the healed, gleaming burn scars of a blacksmith on his chest, belly and forearms (not too many, but enough to cause concern – did he ever wear that apron when Gobber wasn't around?). Still not much body hair, though... What was Stoick going to do with a practically hairless heir to the _Hairy_ Hooligans tribe?

"Stoick," Gobber's voice cut into him like a knife, solemn though it was. "We need to do this."

One last bracing breath and a silent prayer to the gods, and he was prepared to face the quiet battle before him. He carried Hiccup to the hearth and sat down before the anvil. With a shaky grip he postured his son's back to his chest, and he held him. Spitelout removed the dressings on Hiccup's leg, and set the seeping wound on the anvil. The dark-haired man spared a moment to look sorrowfully upon their charge; in a rare moment of tenderness, he touched Hiccup's cheek. Stoick could have sworn he heard a near-silent "forgive me, nephew" under the crackling of the hearth.

"Looks like the gall has taken hold of him," Spitelout said, clearly this time. He reached down to hold Hiccup's leg still. Gobber took the ax from the embers, carefully avoiding the glowing metal as he clicked it into place on his arm. Hiccup wouldn't remember any of this, but they gave him mead and gall anyway, and braced him – and themselves – for Hel.

Gobber muttered an apology and raised his ax. For the first time in his life, Stoick could not watch the grace of a wielded weapon. He closed his eyes, held tight, and pressed his lips to his son's russet crown.

* * *

**A little one-shot! So this was actually inspired by a 100 Themes Challenge. I did some research on the use of gall, but didn't find a lot of consistencies during my info-search. So there is a tiny bit of artistic lisence taken here, and I think that's ok because it's a fanfiction for my own sick and twisted mind. It may be tragically eronious, but it wouldn't leave my brain alone, and we all know how that goes. ^_^ I hope you enjoyed! I have a few more like this (some a little fluffier than others) if anyone is interested. I may post them later. Lemme know what you think! Reviews = love!**

**~mjb**


	2. Nature

Hiccup loved his dragon. He loved most dragons, of course, but he loved his dragon most for a lot of reasons.

One of those reasons was the particular way Toothless had decided to lay claim on his human: quite demurely in comparison to the other dragons. Toothless mother-henned him, making sure he ate (regurgitated fish…), helping him balance when there was ice on the ground, that sort of thing. He drooled on him on purpose sometimes. He tried sitting on him once. Other dragons... well, they -

"EW! HICCUP!" called one of the younger children. She ran to him, her tunic sporting a sizable wet spot. She looked furious, for a seven-year-old. Hiccup, for his part, tried not to laugh in front of her.

"Uh oh," he said, trying to look serious. "Looks like your Terror just claimed you. You two are stuck together for life, now, you know that?"

"Wha-?! He PEED on me!" she screeched. "Tell him he's a bad dragon!" She stomped her foot on the slushy path.

"Well, I would," Hiccup shrugged, setting hands on his narrow hips, "but that's just their nature. See, in early spring, dragons have this thing where they mark their chosen humans to keep other dragons from _stealing_ them."

"It's gross!" she whined. "Do they all pee on their people?"

"Uh..." Hiccup glanced over his shoulder at Toothless, who (thank the gods) had never, ever, laid claim to him in such a fashion. "Yeah," he half-fibbed. "They all do. Just be glad you don't have one of the bigger dragons yet."

"Why?" Ah, innocence.

"No, Stormfly, wait – ARGH!" As if on cue, Astrid was seen backtracking away from her dragon as the Nadder turned her tail end up at her rider. What came next needs no description, but the little girl stared in horror anyway, eyes wide as saucers as Astrid stomped over to Hiccup. Hiccup, for his part, did not feel like laughing at all, considering the physical harm that would come to him if he did.

"Tell me Toothless does this to you," she growled dangerously, soaking wet from head to toe.

"Um," Hiccup stalled, only for a split second. "Hey, it's their nature, what can you do?"

Astrid took that to mean exactly what it meant. Toothless had never once peed on or sprayed him. So she did the only appropriate thing.

She hauled back her fist and punched Hiccup as hard as she could.

* * *

**I have a puppy. This came to mind. I'm sure you can guess why. This did serve the good purpose of lightening my wet-leg-woes, though. I think this is the shortest piece I've ever written. XD Still, I like it enough to post it. Just a fair warning, I almost never write humor, but this idea was way too funny to pass up. I only hope I did justice to the concept in the way I delivered it, because I am no good at humor. I can do wonders with sarcasm, though. ^^;**

**Thanks for taking the time to read!**

**~mjb**


	3. Do Not Disturb

How all of Berk could be so uplifted and somber at the same time was a new experience for them all. The war was over! Their hero, however, was not well. Hiccup's leg had been lost, and the entire village feared losing the rest of him – none moreso than Stoick. The journey home had been precarious, and no one was allowed to see the teenager from the moment he was carried into the chieftain's house. Including Toothless.

Stoick would not let the dragon into the house to see his son.

He wasn't punishing Toothless by any means. Odin forbid he hold a grudge against the one that saved Hiccup's life. But Stoick wouldn't risk it. The protests had come in the form of furious roars and bucking about the grassy hill in a threatening display of "I'll see my human if I want to!" Within hours, roars had died down to persistent growls and scratches at the door, the shudders, even the roof. A day later saw the scaly beast coming undone at the seams, whining and wailing at every corner of the house with no real spirit behind his demands, only desperation. He floated between spurts of anxious panic and long hours of lethargy.

The wailing roars were worst at night, when Toothless wandered to the cliffs of the island to serenade himself. Those ghostly cries floated over the village despite the distance, encasing the quiet houses in their somber vibrations. They bothered Stoick the most, because the man had to watch his son stir in his fever-ridden sleep as the sounds penetrated his illness. The constant dragon song was only quiet when one of the teenagers sat with Toothless, watching the Haddock house with him. Astrid was kind enough to take a stiff bristled brush to his hide more than once, sweeping away the scales that were shed from his stress and healing wounds.

Within a week, Toothless became a pathetic pile of embers at the front door, refusing to eat or sleep long enough for the almost silent whining to cease.

Still, Stoick would not let the dragon into the house to see his son.

He didn't do it to protect his fevered boy. No, he was doing it to protect the dragon. If Hiccup gave up his spirit and passed to Valhalla with Toothless at his bedside to watch, the dragon would never recover, never forgive, never fly. Hard as it was to believe that a dragon and a boy could bond so closely in little more than a month, Stoick didn't doubt that witnessing Hiccup's death would cause the dragon to pass as well.

The chieftain would never admit that if he lost one, he couldn't bear to lose the other, too. So for his own, selfish reasons, he would not let Toothless see his son. Instead, he sat with the dragon on the cliffs at night. And he mourned with him. And he petted him. He fed him. He watered him. He nursed him.

And when the healer smiled at Hiccup's condition for the first time, Stoick stole all the dragon-related drawings from Hiccup's room and took them to Gobber. He raided the boy's back room in the smithy, too, searching for every vital sketch. And he helped Gobber make new tack for the dragon and his rider (in his own, secretly clumsy way.) Gobber even devised a prosthetic that would work with the foot controls of Hiccup's original saddle design.

When the healer stopped giving Hiccup the tea that kept him asleep, Gobber fitted the new foot and left the Haddock house with a hopeful smile. Stoick took it upon himself to stand by the dragon and bask in the relief of his son's return to the world. He opened the front door wide, looked a confused Toothless in the eyes, smiled, and said,

"Go on, then. Wake him up!"

* * *

**Hello! Another old piece I found. It's short, but it was fun to write. This one struck me while I was watching my parents' dog during their travels. It's not my best work by a long shot, but there are parts I really like. I hope you enjoyed it!**

**Thanks for reading!**

**~mjb**


	4. Fortitude

Gobber found Stoick at his son's bedside, like he knew he would. But Hiccup was not in his bed like he should have been. He was in Stoick's arms. Again.

"Last I checked," Gobber drawled, closing the door to the chief's house behind him, "the term bed rest meant something like letting the boy get his rest. In bed."

"He was awake again, Gobber," Stoick choked. His eyes never left their observation of Hiccup. The blacksmith drew out a long sigh and hobbled to the larger man's side. Hiccup's night fury rustled in his corner with a quiet whine, drawing Gobber's eyes to his shadowed nest of blankets for a moment. The dragon was still exhausted, nursing battle wounds and sleeping, mostly. But those eerie green eyes were focused intently on Stoick's charge.

"Stoick, I know it's not very Viking-like, but maybe you ought to tell me what's on your mind." Gobber dragged a stool from its place by the hearth and sat next to his friend. The blacksmith was not daft by any stretch. He could even say he was in his element, having lost a couple of limbs himself.

"I was told he would sleep until his injuries were recovered. He keeps waking up, and he's in so much pain..." Stoick trailed off there, sounding so vulnerable it made Gobber's heart ache. But Hiccup had been through several accidents in his growing years, and a serious illness in his infancy. All that line of thinking did was account for Hiccup's small size compared to his peers; it did not account for Stoick's unusual behavior.

But Gobber knew what it was: guilt. The blacksmith was used to having serious talks by the hearth concerning the teenager – they happened often. It didn't make them any easier.

"Stoick... You can't blame yourself for what happened."

"Oh, I think I can," he replied. He stroked Hiccup's hair back from his sweaty forehead with a gentleness only a father could know. Hiccup's eyes fluttered, opening only briefly.

"Dad..." he muttered. His tiny chest heaved in sporadic bursts for a moment, and Gobber knew the pain was rousing him from much-needed rest.

"I'm here, son," Stoick answered, brushing his hair back again. Hiccup settled a little, but true rest would elude him for some time – he had always been restless, a light sleeper "It's my fault, Gobber."

"I know," the blacksmith replied with classic Viking bluntness. "But you apologized for et, and he chose this anyway. Mostly." Stoick sighed, seeming not to have heard him.

"He shouldn't know this kind of pain so young –" he froze at a sudden, shuddering moan from Hiccup. Toothless whined in the corner, shuffling closer to the hearth. Stoick watched the dragon for a moment – the presence of the creature was quite a change. One that would take the man some time to get used to.

"Dad..." Hiccup whispered, drawing the attention of the men. He squirmed in the cradle of Stoick's massive arm, and Gobber was reminded how small the boy still was next to the stock he came from.

"Sum'm's wrong," Hiccup slurred, "m- my leg..." His brow cinched and eyes opened a little, but he wasn't focusing. Wasn't wholly there.

"Easy, now," Stoick said gently, setting his hand on his son's chest to still his squirming. That hand easily covered half of Hiccup's scrawny torso, moving in a small circle. It was a trick Stoick had learned from his wife, to soothe his ever-restless child when he was hurt or sick and needed to rest.

"Gah! … N-no..." Hiccup gasped. "Toothless!"

Gobber was tipped precariously to the side not a moment later as the dragon pushed past his seat, nudging Hiccup's elbow with his nose. The boy reached out blindly, and Toothless moved his head to touch hand to forehead. Hiccup began to calm immediately, but he gasped and heaved with overexertion. Stoick kept rubbing his chest, sparing a stern glance at his comrade. "This is the third time today, Gobber, and it's barely past morning. Spitelout has done everything he can."

"Hm," Gobber grunted, scratching his chin. He didn't recall being so restless during his own recoveries, but then he'd been older, already battle-hardened. "Have ye tried giving him any more of that special mead?"

"Aye, but he can't keep it down. Stuff's too strong for him now."

"Perfect," Gobber muttered. Well, now was as good a time as any to be honest with his friend. "Ye know, Hiccup probably won't remember most of this when he comes to."

"Wish I could be sure of that..."

And just like that, Gobber had had enough. Stoick was not ready to listen to reason; at least not yet. With a sigh, he stood and shoved the stool back to the hearth.

"Very well; I'll leave you to your sulking. I have a project waiting in the forge anyway." As he reached the door, he looked back. "You should give your son a little credit, Stoick. He has a soft heart, not a frail one."

At least the chief had the decency to blink and look a little ashamed. Gobber's heart ached for the man and his boy. And maybe a little for the dragon at their feet. Probably not. But maybe.

"And give yourself a little credit, while you're at it," he grumbled, flinging the door open and staring out at the changing village as he finished, "It takes great fortitude to sit by and watch yer child suffer."

With that, Gobber closed the door and hobbled away. He had a lot of Hiccup-esque thinking to do at his forge, and there would be plenty of time for more serious talks by the hearth later.

* * *

**Another really old piece. I'm not sure how I feel about this one, but there are aspects of it that I like. It feels almost like it's not supposed to be finished. Perhaps I'll try to extend it at a later date, but for now it shall be posted as only a semi-polished installment. It's not directly connected to any of the one-shots here, but I suppose it could be a sequel to Drink if you squint at it long enough. **

**Thanks for reading!**

**~mj**


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